This Would Halt Republican Brinksmanship In Its Tracks ...

I intimated about this yesterday ...

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...postcount=1345

but one way Republicans, (especially recalcitrant House Republicans), would quickly halt their brinksmanship and threatning a debt default would be for just one of the so-called "moderate" Republicans - like say New York's Peter King - to suddenly announce he's switching parties from Republican to Democrat. Switching parties is rare in politics, but it might make sense for representatives like King - especially if the Tea Party kooks decide King is a "traitor" and they are going to primary him - to switch.

There are [up to] 20-25 House Republicans (like King) who are in vulnerable "swing districts" that could go either way in the 2014 mid terms. This current standoff is not helping any of these moderate House Republicans - it's hurting them - and the longer this impasse drags on, the more it hurts them. Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats are surely sending out feelers to members like Peter King - letting him know that he'll be welcomed to the Democratic party with open arms - and probably lots of money.

Switiching parties would be a perfect way for Peter King to say "FU" to the Tea Party. Even a defection of only one House member to the Democrats would send a shock wave through the GOP. Such a move would sober up the rest of the party (and stiffen John Boehner's back) pronto. All this intransigence over the shutdown and defaulting on the debt would come to a very quick halt. The last thing John Boehner wants to see is a tsunami of defections with 15 to 20 members of his own party switiching over to the Democrats. If that calamity were to happen, Speaker Boehner would suffer the humiliation of having to turn his Speaker's gavel back over to a beaming and triumphant Nancy Pelosi. (I don't think that will actually happen, but the defection of just one member - like Peter King - would immediately have Boehner soiling his pants.)

I'm not "predicting" that a moderate Republican House member will actually switch parties. I'm just pointing out that Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and Chris van Hollen must surely be trying to entice a defection. (When a defection actually occurs, I will definitely open my political consulting business and charge $1,000/hour as the going rate for my consulting services.)

I'm going to ask the most serious question of this thread:

Does anyone read Alan's posts?

I feel like I probably agree with what they say but man, I just can't do it.

I do not.

They are not bad, just repetitive and not sufficiently good to justify the opportunity cost. The only person whose posts I read when they are that long is DVaut1, who I would still pay like 50 bucks a month to post regularly or start a blog.

Alan, my last post was meant to you more tongue in cheek than it came across just FYI

rjoe, I read them Some are good, some are WTF.

It apparently hasn't sunk in yet with Mrs. Bachmann that she'll soon be spending a great deal of her time sitting in the defendants chair in a courtroom trying to avoid the fate of going to jail.

Alan is the MicroBob of politics.

I love you too Gambool ... even when you call me a moron.

He's got a big dose of Sklansky in his writing style, imo.

I read most of them

Rjoe:

I'm surprised that you don't know this, but President Obama reads my posts. In fact, he and I talk over the phone daily. I've even played poker with President Obama. (He is a very "tight" poker player.)

Uhmmm, is that a compliment or an insult? (I've always thought of myself as a modern day Shakespeare ...)

suzzer: Who is MicroBob?

I read all ya'll. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Especially the ugly.

Can I ask you to show some of your work? Or just to spell out a little bit of where you think we'd be today if things had gone otherwise, in the way I described, in 2008?

Except you can put alan on ignore.

I skim until I get to a crazy point like how Peter "soaked in the blood of innocents murdered by religious extremist terrorists that he knowingly aided" King is a moderate because he thinks he can play the middle on this one subject, then I just skip over the rest.

Phill:

Well, if it's true that Peter King actually said that, then I suppose some other Republican can make the switch.

I read most of Alan's posts, skimming some. He was more right about super/chaos than most or almost everyone else, which says something interesting, not sure what. Maybe because he is from the south or perhaps he doesn't believe in instrumental rationality. This whole thing is pretty fascinating.

The best article so far has been the NY Times one regarding all the conservative groups meeting and planning weekly over the summer. I think I've seen some Frontlines documentary or New Republic pieces showing this. It struck me as cultish.

I'm glad obama rejected Boehner's latest proposal this afternoon. Obama seems to be growing a pair finally. Boehner seems to be uncalm.

Analogy that's still working is that the dog caught the car and now has no idea what to do now.

CR and debt ceiling increases are benefits for everyone and related to core health of the economy. It's ok to make little demands about budget or whatever re CR and even debt ceiling, but they need to workable and understood as such by the opposition (and GOP already got huge spending cuts with sequester). Don't begin with demands about Obama's main achievement and then start grasping for anything to save face when he doesn't say uncle.

Ted Cruz. Fun guy.

The cleanest issue is TARP and letting the banks fail. No TARP and letting the banks simply fail would have basically meant no credit in the US economy for a prolonged period of time. You can debate the bailout terms and how we should change regulation after the fact (I think equity holders got off real, real light and we should have looked for a way to dilute the **** out of them), but that's what not doing anything would have meant.

Think companies like GE going bankrupt because they couldnt roll over short-term debt. New mortgages being almost quite literally unavailable. A meaningful percentage of the country simply not being able to cash a paycheck for an extended period of time in late '08 early '09 and not being able to access their cash for an extended period of time while the FDIC dealt with all the failures (I moved my money into three checking accounts at the time, not because they werent going to be FDIC guaranteed at the end of the day, but because I feared not being able to access cash if a bank failed at that point while they sorted the mess out). Going back to a cash/barter economy. Everyone anywhere close to retirement would have seen their savings wiped out with little hope of recovery.

I think GDP was down about 40% five years into the Great Depression. That's not a bad proxy IMHO, but you can come up with whatever you think the stats would have been with the above happening. Consequences would have been catastrophic almost beyond imagination.

I wouldn't say Obama rejected it giving they're going back into talks.

so why is approval of congress at historical lows when the system of electing them is basically the same as its always been?

more angry/cynical culture?
24 hour news media?
more gerrymandering?

as a regular lurker I can say this is spot on! this also applies to Deuces McKracken.

FYP

You've also got the black president shoving his huge socialist agenda down our throats. Tons of the disapproval of Congress is how they haven't stopped Obama.

Heard an interesting discussion about the Gephardt Rule that used to be in place to avoid these types of crises.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...QxOE_blog.html

Apparently it was the Newt Gingrich led house of the 90's that killed this rule and set the stage for the current shenanigans. Further proof if needed that Gingrich was and is a massive douche.

Newt, on Crossfire tonight, was all like 'This has been used 17 times in the past, it's totally standard!'.